America’s homelessness crisis is fueled not just by sky-high rents or economic hardship, but by the unprecedented wave of asylum seekers flooding shelters under ex-president Joe Biden‘s watch, a bombshell new study reveals.
Researchers from the University of Chicago and Dartmouth College have linked a staggering 60 percent of the record 43 percent rise in people living in US homeless shelters between 2022 and 2024 to newly arrived immigrants seeking asylum.
The eye-opening paper, bluntly titled ‘Asylum seekers and the rise in homelessness’, lays bare the enormous burden placed on a handful of American cities and the taxpayers footing the multibillion-dollar bill.
‘Substantially more than half of the increase in homelessness comes from migration, rather than new individuals falling into poverty,’ the University of Chicago’s Bruce Meyer said.
‘Federal immigration policy changes under the Trump administration that narrow pathways to asylum are likely to slow the growth of sheltered homelessness in the years ahead.’
Meyer said his paper, which partly backs President Donald Trump‘s border crackdown, was proving ‘unpopular’ in academic circles – a factor he believes might explain why it has been largely ignored by the mainstream media.
Data from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development show that 771,480 people were homeless in America at the start of 2024 – an alarming 18 percent increase from 2023.
Between 2022 and 2024, the number of homeless people in shelters reversed a 16-year decline and skyrocketed by 43 percent.
Homeless migrants wait in line to get a bed in a New York City church during the surge in January 2024
Researchers now say that asylum seekers massively drove up America’s homeless crisis, seen here in Boston
The researchers estimate that 60 percent of this rise was driven by asylum seekers.
Meyer’s study takes a sledgehammer to the public debate and previous academic papers that attributed the rise to housing costs and the end of pandemic-era protections.
While those factors do play a role, the researchers found they don’t explain the scale or the geographic concentration of the shelter crisis.
Instead, asylum policy changes under the Biden administration – including the rollback of anti-immigrant policies from Trump’s first term – drove the problem.
Biden’s policies included streamlining asylum appointments and temporary ‘parole’ entry permits at the deluged southern border, says the 21-page report.
New York City, Chicago, suburban Boston and Denver bore the brunt of the crisis, says the report, which was co-authored by Angela Wyse and Douglas Williams.
Pictured: The University of Chicago’s Bruce Meyer
These four jurisdictions alone accounted for 75 percent of the national rise in homeless shelter populations, with more than 77,000 new homeless people in New York City alone.
Each of them experienced a flood of asylum seekers, forcing local officials to scramble for emergency housing; often transforming schools, hotels and airports into makeshift shelters.
The costs were sky-high.
According to the researchers, sheltering a single migrant family in New York City costs an eye-watering average of $137,600 a year. In Massachusetts, that figure hits $120,000.
Notably, the study does not blame asylum seekers for the rise in unsheltered homelessness – those sleeping in tent cities and on sidewalks – which has been on the rise for years.
The academic research comes down in part supporting the immigration policy of President Donald Trump, seen here at a migrant lockup facility in Florida
New York, Chicago, Massachusetts and Denver bore the brunt of the crisis
About two thirds of America’s homeless population are living in shelters, the rest are on the streets
Biden-era policies saw a surge of migrants that cost its cities and taxpayers dearly, says the report
New York City’s Mayor Eric Adams says Trump’s border crackdown brought ‘real relief’ to his city
But it does make clear that massive immigration surges are driving costs and chaos in city-run shelters.
The findings add fuel to an already fiery political debate over border security, which dominated the 2024 election and has continued amid the deportation blitz of Trump’s second administration.
The President won last year’s election on the back of his popular immigration policies, leading even some Democratic politicians to turn against Biden’s open-door approach to foreigners.
New York City’s Democratic Mayor Eric Adams on Wednesday praised Trump for securing the southern border for providing ‘real relief’ to his city.
‘We’re now down to less than 100 migrant asylum seekers coming into our city a week, and that’s due to the securing of the border,’ Adams told the Pod Force One podcast.
‘The Trump administration secured the border, and because of that, you’re not seeing the thousands of people coming in, and it has been a real relief for our city.’
The mayor noted that the $7.7 billion the city spent on the housing and care of illegal immigrants over the past few years ‘could have gone to other services’ for hard-up New Yorkers.
Meyer says his report raised eyebrows among his liberal-leaning academic colleagues as ‘controversial’ for in some way endorsing Trump’s tough border policies.
He also said he struggled to get airtime for research that ‘went along with the narrative that Democrats did not want to emphasize.’
This landmark study may force a dramatic rethink of homelessness policy across the US – one that considers not just local economic struggles, but the global migration crisis playing out on America’s streets.
Welcome or not, the asylum wave has changed the face of homelessness in America – and the costs are mounting by the day.
